


Search

by Res



Category: Dragonriders of Pern - Anne McCaffrey
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2003-07-03
Updated: 2003-07-03
Packaged: 2017-10-20 22:46:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,896
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/217917
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Res/pseuds/Res
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>M'shel, rider of blue Calisth, flies on Search and finds a candidate.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Search

**Author's Note:**

> Prequel to Candidate
> 
> Author's Notes: This came about from an anonymous story that was initially just a filler story for the 'zine. But the character spoke to me and spawned another, M'shel, and I ended up adopting both characters and had planned several things for them...but then Telgar 5 went defunct. Ah well. I may yet write those stories! M'shel and M'kyl still talk to me sometimes... maybe I'll hear more from them. I hope so.
> 
> Warnings: Implied child abuse
> 
> Thanks: To Cathleen for keeping Telgar 5 going as long as she did. To Telgar 5 for giving me these wonderful characters to play with, even all these years later. And to Kristin for helping me get my stories off that old computer!

**  
"Search"   
**

 

 _(one week or less before the Hatching of Zaribeth's clutch)_

There was nothing like the wind whistling past you as you played among the clouds. There really wasn't. I used to lie on the grass, when I was a little boy, and dream of what those clouds would look like up close. I never thought I'd be Searched and have a chance to find out!

 _I like clouds._

I reached down and slapped the blue neck under me affectionately. _"So do I. I'm glad you can fly high enough that we can play in them!"_

 _I like playing, too. Senath says we must take the east cotholds and he will take the north._

I sighed. Trust a dragon to bring you back to business. Not that it was a bad business, mind you...I very much enjoyed the opportunity to offer this pleasure to new prospects, and this time we were looking for a queen! Zaribeth had laid an enormous clutch, and a gold egg!, and the Weyrleaders had decided there were not enough Candidates in the barracks to give the hatchlings sufficient to choose from.

Calisth and I were one of the best pairs. Over three-quarters of the youngsters we Searched Impressed well and became a credit to the Weyr.

I sighed again and looked longingly at the fluffy white clouds dotting the sapphire sky...so close, yet duty put them so far away. _"Oh...all right. Fine. Let's go...."_

Calisth banked sharply eastward and we began to seek out all the holds in our section of Telgar to Search, dropping into each and asking to meet any youngsters there. We stopped at cothold after beasthold after crafthold, finding several likely boys, but no girls. I made note of the names and locations of the prospects, and Calisth and I moved on. Girls were important...we needed enough Candidates for the new gold.

We were nearing the end of our list of holds and still no girls. I was feeling a little disappointed, hoping to find one or two girls at least, when we dropped into a dirty little beasthold right on the edge of Telgar territory. The place was absolutely filthy, with shoddily mended fences, huge mud pits instead of paddocks, and even the hold looked as if the rockface it was cut into was collapsing around it.

Calisth settled daintily into the muddy forecourt and I slid off, landing with a wet squelch in a pile of...you don't want to know. _I_ don't want to know. It was _disgusting._ With a grimace I picked my way out of it and stepped up to the nearest fence to scrape off my boots. Calisth rumbled in discontent as he shifted his weight, primly flipping his wings to his back and holding his tail out of the muck as he looked around. His eyes whirled in uncertain yellow-greens.

"Hallo?" I called, picking my way toward the hold door. "Hallo? Anyone here?" I made a last leap toward the lintel stone, gratefully putting both feet on the solid rock as I knocked lightly on the door post. "Dragonrider on Search! Anyone here?"

Calisth's head snapped around to look at the barn, carved into the cliff-face several yards away. _I heard something. I think someone is in there._ He lowered his head and tried to peer into the dark opening as I reluctantly began picking my way through the mucky yard toward him.

 _"What did you hear?"_ I asked, silently, before calling out again, "Hallo!! Dragonrider on Search! Anyone there?"

I had just stepped in front of the door when a herd of disgustingly filthy curlies came flooding out of it, the vile reek of their rancid wool nauseatingly strong as they barreled around and under me, almost knocking me to the ground. As I scrambled to keep my feet, too busy to do anything but dance and yelp as their sharp hooves pummeled my toes and knocked against my shins, a large man shoved his way into the door, wielding a quarterstaff against the hindmost animals in a decidedly unkind manner. He was grossly obese and his hair was coated in grease and filth; the same his clothes, to the point that it was all a uniform color, that of grimy soot, and any of the original color, pattern and even shape, was lost to the stink and muck. He scowled at me and lifted the staff as if to use it on me and hurry me after his curlies like any other beast, but Calisth dropped his head and pinned him to the door with a red-eyed look.

Calisth is a true softie...but don't make him mad. A mad blue dragon is more than any holder wants to deal with.

The man glowered at my dragon, but lowered the staff with a growl. "Whaddya want?" he snarled, adjusting his pants.

"Dragonrider on Search, sir," I replied politely, straightening slightly and trying not to frown at him. "Are there any younglings in the hold? I'd like to meet them."

"What you want with my hold?"

"I'd like to meet your children, holder. I am on Search." Calisth shifted his weight and eyed the man again, the red whirling a little faster as he felt my impatience.

"Don't got no children. Just my wife's brat. Good-for-nothing dead glow, she is. You don't want her." He adjusted his pants again and scratched rudely, then sniffed loudly and spat, just missing my left foot.

I refused to move, despite the fact that the wind seemed to have shifted and was now blowing from him to me. By my dragon's shell, he smelled bad! "How old is she, sir? I need to see all children between 10 and 18 Turns. Orders, you know?" I shrugged, looking abashed, and tried to evoke a little sympathy from him, hoping he would cooperate.

He didn't.

"I said you don't want her, dragonrider." He sneered the title like an insult. "She's a good-for-nothing dead glow do-nothing. Not worth your time. Leave her to me."

Calisth shifted again, leaning closer as I straightened again and looked the begrimed man up and down. "I'm sorry, sir. It's orders. I have to see your girl, if she is between 10 and 18 Turns."

He shifted uncomfortably as Calisth's blue head advanced, red eyes whirling rapidly, then coughed a curse and turned to shout into the barn. "Mykle! Get yerself out here, girl! Move, before I take a strap to you!" Calisth and I relaxed slightly as there was a faint stirring deeper in the blackness of the barn, though I wasn't too hopeful. Most likely the holder was right, in a place like this; the child was probably about as suitable as the parent.

But as she stepped forward out of the barn, carefully edging past the holder, just out of arms reach, Calisth suddenly snorted and the red of his eyes abruptly shifted to the purest of blues. I snorted too; she reeked nearly as badly as her father and she was standing closer. Her shapeless dress was in tatters, the skirt positively shredded and falling apart, and was covered in all manner of mud and filth. Her hair was badly tangled, sprinkled with rank straw bits and burrs. It was nearly impossible to guess her age, she was so dirty; and what the dirt didn't cover, malnutrition, starvation and hard use disguised. She looked as if a stiff wind would blow her away, the bones of her face and wrists standing out so sharply I almost expected them to slice through the thin skin covering them. She moved furtively, never meeting my gaze, or that of the holder, but watching us just the same, obviously ready to dart away at any sudden movement.

Calisth snorted again, drawing my attention to him, away from the cringing girl. With a faint shock, I suddenly noticed the shade of his eyes and his interested, almost eager surveying of the girl. The holder noticed it too and his ugly frown grew. Calisth didn't need to say a word to me, I already knew the verdict.

"Your daughter is wanted by the Weyr. Please have her gather her things; a dragonrider will be by this evening, just at sunset, to escort her to the Weyr. You will be invited to the Hatching when it occurs. Please be certain she is ready at sunset. Good day to you, holder, and congratulations." I turned on my heel as crisply as the sucking muck of the yard permitted and hurried to Calisth's shoulder to mount, trying not to see the helpless rage on the man's face.

***

Just precisely at sunset, Calisth and I gracefully circled to a landing just outside the hold proper, checking carefully for relatively clean, solid ground this time. I slid down his shoulder to the ground, and we waited for several minutes before the girl appeared, escorted by her obviously reluctant father. The grime on her face had been rearranged as if some attempt had been made to clean her up, make her more presentable, and she was wearing a new dress, new being a relative term. The dress was threadbare, faded, and several sizes too large, but at least it was clean and in one piece. As they came closer, I could see that a good bit more of the grime was gone than I had first thought; much of the darkness on her face was bruising, some obviously fresh, and what little unbruised skin there was, was a beautifully tan shade of creamed klah. Her hair was still wet from its washing, dripping wet trails down her shoulders and back, but uncombed and still very tangled, and her feet were bare.

The holder shoved her at me with a silent glare, then spun on his heel and marched away, fat jiggling in self-righteous fury. The girl never looked back at him, stepping forward instead to lay a tentative hand against Calisth's cheek, stone faced. She almost smiled, almost, as Calisth nudged her hand, guiding her to the sensitive eyeridges. After a few gentle rubs, she turned to me and allowed me to help her onto the massive blue back, gratefully accepting the oversized wherhide jacket I had for her and putting it on as I strapped her pitifully small bundle of belongings to the riding harness.

After making sure she was securely fastened, herself, I told Calisth to take us up, into the clear sky. It was beautiful this evening, the sky. Deep blue and purple, and full of fluffy, glowing, pink and orange clouds. Calisth took us up and up and up, until he was above one of the florescent pink clouds, then banked gently to dive down, down through the cloud, rushing us through the cold, bright pink mist, popping us between to the Weyr just as he broke free from the bottom of the cloud.

We came out of _between_ into a flare of light from the dying sun, the Weyr being considerably further westward from our previous location. I heard a gasp behind me as Calisth leveled off to glide, almost floating, over the Weyr, allowing us to savour the view of the sun setting into the mountains, setting them on fire with color.

Then, in a very soft, private voice, behind me I heard an awestruck and wondering, "Wow...."

End


End file.
